The present invention relates to artificial foliage articles such as bushes or trees, garlands or wreaths or similar, for use preferably as Christmas decorations, and to branches used to form part of an artificial tree.
In conventional artificial trees of the type as used for Christmas trees, the branches of the tree generally comprise a central wire which may be a solid wire to which sub-branches which also comprise metal wires are attached. The stems of the main branches and the sub-branches may be covered in a thread wound tightly about the branch many times so that this both covers the central wires and serves to attach the sub-branches onto the main branches.
In another arrangement, the sub-branches have stems in the form of twisted metal wires which are twisted together with the main branch stem at the junctions thereof.
In items such as garlands and wreaths a somewhat different structure is generally provided. These comprise a main stem in the form of central wire which is held into the desired shape by securing it on a support frame, the sub-branches being attached onto the central wire. The central wire may be formed of two individual wire strings which are twisted together. Each sub-branch is itself formed of a relatively short length of twisted wire, with many thin lengths of plastics material held therebetween to give the coniferous "needles". The wire of the sub-branch is looped in a U-turn around the central wire prior to its twisting so that this too is held within the twisted strings.
Whilst these attachment methods can adequately secure the sub-branches onto the tree or the wreath, they are relatively expensive and time-consuming to produce. Moreover, they are relatively inflexible in that once a sub-branch has been positioned at a particular place it is impossible to move its position.
The present invention seeks to provide a structure applicable to items such as trees, bushes, wreaths and garlands, and similar articles which overcomes these drawbacks.